Review & Swatches: Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion in “Greed”

This is it – THE most legendary primer in the beauty industry. Eyeshadow Primer Potion is coveted by makeup artists and makeup junkies alike because it guarantees more vibrant eyeshadow that lasts for 24 hours and NEVER CREASES! Once you experience its powers (plus how smoothly it glides on – an added bonus) you’ll never want to live without it. Original formula dries down invisibly, while Eden, Sin and Greed are shades that can also be worn as shadows or highlighters!

Urban Decay’s legendary primer potion is now offered in 4 permanent shades. One of those shades–Greed–is reviewed here. Greed is a shimmering yellow gold.

Packaging:9.25/10

The previous packaging is depicted in this review, which was a plastic genie-like tube that came with an angled, doe-foot applicator. I have also used Urban Decay’s primer potions with the new packaging, which is a plastic squeeze-tube. The squeeze-tubes are superior to the previous packaging in that they allow you to access the product more easily and allow you to access more of the product inside, particularly when you’ve used up the majority of the primer and are trying to use up any small remaining amount. The squeeze tube is easier to use and easier to cut open if you want to dig out the last bit of product.

Quality: 8.25/10

Greed has a thin, cream formula that glides across the skin very easily. The color is a shimmery gold that leans heavily on the yellow side. At first, the shade looks like liquid metal, and the effect is strong. But since you only use a small amount on the lids and you spread it out to act like a base, it loses a majority of its gold color and shimmer. It will leave behind only a slight gold tint and a subtle serving of shimmer. You can use this as a stand-alone lid color, but you will need to apply multiple layers, allowing the product to dry in between.

I get mixed results with this primer. First, it deepens the color of shadows slightly, but actually doesn’t do too much to increase the shimmery quality of a shadow (this is true for both already-shimmery and matte shadows). Second, on a good day, Greed will help my shadows resist for 3 hours longer than the shadow would without a primer. But a lot of the time, using this primer only extends the life of my shadow by about an hour. I don’t know exactly why, but my guess is that the shimmer particles in this primer leave a less cohesive base to separate the shadow from the skin’s oils underneath the primer, so it’s less effective at keeping shadows from creasing.

I particularly don’t like the over-stated claims the company makes about what Greed can do. Urban Decay says that Greed will last “for 24 hours and NEVER CREASE.” This is just (a) inaccurate and (b) an unnecessarily exaggerated claim. Why push something as lasting for 24 hours if it’s not true, especially since virtually no one wears eye shadow for 24 hours straight anyway?

Ease of Use: 9.75/10

This primer glides across the skin and dries quickly. You only need a small dab on each lid to use it as a base, but you can also layer the color to emphasize the gold shimmer.

Price: 9.5/10

For $20.00 you get 0.37 fl oz of product. This is more product than many of the similarly-situated brands sold by Sephora offer in their shadow primers.